iPhone 5 Release: Killer App is iWallet?

The dust of new iPad’s rumors has not completely settled yet and there is more big news from Apple. The tech giant has won the patent for iWallet, which could be a killer app in iPhone 5.

Earlier this week on Tuesday March 6 2012, U.S. Patent and Trademark authorities awarded Apple with iWallet patent. The patent is hidden behind the title “Parental controls” and this is the same reason why it has not received much attention as it seemed to be a relatively limited patent. Clearly looking at U.S. registered Patent Number #8,127,982, iWallet looks more like reality than a usual thought.

The rumors about possibility of Near Field Communication (NFC) feature in iPhone 5 were always high from the beginning. With this patent, the clouds of doubt have passed by. Apple’s in-house mobile payment app - iWallet - is going to be the top innovative feature of the upcoming iPhone, as Siri is in iPhone 4S.

However, at this moment we are not completely confirmed that the iPhone makers will name the service as iWallet as the patent images are showing the new app name as E-Wallet. But, one thing is certain - Apple will be launching its mobile payment service along with its new phone (dubbed iPhone 5 or new iPhone) scheduled for September/October launch.

The iWallet could also be a business killer for Google Wallet, the mobile payment service from Google. Google Wallet has failed to grab a lot of users as it is costly and the search engine giant is being criticized for forcing android app developer to use its own Wallet service instead of third party services like PayPal and Zong. Back-bench talks are there that Google has been building pressure on developers to use Google Wallet and has even warned that it will remove developer’s apps from the Play Store (formally known as Android Market), if they use any other payment service than Google Wallet. If that’s true, the launch of iWallet will attract mobile application developers towards iOS platform.